


Solo

by madeofheart (nerdofthenile)



Series: Oppositestuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Burns, Healing, Implied Murder, Oppositestuck, i mean its oppokarkat, injuries, nothing too graphic but there still are wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 15:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdofthenile/pseuds/madeofheart
Summary: You are SOLLUX CAPTOR, and you didn't want to save her, but it kind of just happened?(A second installment to Oppositestuck, this time focusing on one Sollux Captor and the girl who's life he saves without really processing it.)





	Solo

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry in advance, I am still relatively new to AO3 and am not a pro at figuring out text coloring. 
> 
> Still hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

You are SOLLUX CAPTOR, and you didn't want to save her, but it kind of just happened? It is nothing you can’t deal with, you’re sure. 

The girl in your arms is heavy, but your arms have been in pretty good shape since you started doing push-ups every morning, so it’s nothing too difficult. You have her hugged close to your chest as you try walking towards the exit. However, the smoke around you is making it hard to see. 

Just a bit more time, you think, smiling to yourself. A bit more time and it will go away. 

Sure enough, it just takes a bit more walking through the cavern, and then you can see the light from the two suns prevailing through a slim crack, just big enough for a troll. Since you’re skin and bones, you’re sure to fit, even with her added plushness. You’re so glad you’re so skinny! If not, you both would have never fit through.

You lug her out of the cave, listening to the falling of stones and boulders from within. Now out in the sunlight, you take a peek back into the crevice. Fires rage from inside, and hunks of ruins crash to pieces on the ground, old relics of a civilization that probably outdated you by eras of sweeps. It was astonishing to see, even though it was all being destroyed forever. Hey, at least you got to see it!

You turn your head and remind yourself of your surroundings, you had been in that cave for a good hour. You’re in the middle of a long field, covered in grasses. It’s not unlike the other fields that surround your hive, you do live in the grasslands, what humans would call the “country.” Flowers dot the green of the grass here and there, little plumes of orange and blue that are stunning to see. Every once in awhile, little flutterbeasts land on the petals. Sometimes bees stop by. Bees were pesky, and out of the millions of flowers on Alternia they loved your flowers the best. You use organic pesticides to keep them away, or if you were out of your hive, you’d shoo them off and hope you weren’t stung. 

However, today you don’t have the free hands. 

You lay the girl down on the grass and examine her, pretending you know what you’re doing as you look her over. Her skeletal platings underneath her neck seem fine, but she’s burned all the way up her arms and a pretty nasty gash is at her cheek. When you check her legs, you find various scratches and one deep burn that looks like it was blistering at the edges, and you don’t know what that means (and not knowing is ok, you remind yourself). 

You note the blood that seeps from her wounds is maroon. She is higher on the hemospectrum than you. However, you doubt that means you cannot touch her, since you are, too, a highblood. So without hesitation, you scoop her up and head in the direction of your hive. 

You’re going to need some advice on this. 

And there is only one troll you know who would know what to do.

~

CA: howw bad is she farin?

That is a very good question. You look at the girl still lying on your nutrition slab and type back an honest response. 

TA: 1 don’t know  
TA: should 1 send a picture?

You have no idea how to send a photo via husktop, so you’re hoping he says no. 

CA: maybe, just to assess her

Ah, well. Can’t win them all. At least he answered back! And it's not a full yes. That’s a positive. 

TA: 1 don't know how to send a picture  
TA: sorry  
CA: thats ok!  
CA: you described her an that's enough

Daw. Even the fact that he is pestering you at all is making you feel warm inside.

CA: tell me sol, is she breathin?

You watch her chest move up and down in a slow but steady rhythm from where you sit at your desk. 

TA: yeah?  
CA: she has a pulse?

What’s a pulse? Wait, you think you remember…?

TA: thats a bumpy thing in the chest right  
CA: thats the admission slip!

Oh! You were right. Yay!

You stand up and walk over to her. You think it’s ok to lay your hand right over her pusher, especially in a time where you are playing doctorturer (you feel like a real FLARPer!) for her. You feel the thump of it beneath her skeletal structures, though you aren’t sure if it usually goes so slowly? 

But she does have it, so yay! Yet again, another plus! You love it when a day is full of good things, which for you is almost every day. Can’t relish in it now, though. You’d better answer your friend.

TA: she does  
CA: are her vvisual orbs closed all the way, not slightly parted atoll?

You look at her eyes, which are tight and shut. 

TA: 1 think so  
CA: it sounds mostly surface then  
CA: so nofin internal  
TA: is that good?  
CA: vvery!  
CA: it means she’ll be fin

You smile at his reassurance. Really, he amazed you in almost every way. 

TA: oh  
TA: yay!  
TA: 1 knew she’d be fine  
CA: a course you did, you know everyfin!

Your smile widens at the compliment. He always knows how to boost your self esteem up to new heights, and you knew it could go pretty high already. It was never too low. It was a mystery how he knew what to say to make you even more sure of yourself. You eagerly read his next messages. 

CA: now this is wwhat you shoald do  
CA: wwrap up her cuts as tightly as possible to stop the bleedin

Wrap up her cuts. You could do that. Your lusus has a first aid kit stored away in the ablution block, it's been there ever since you were a wriggler. There were bandages in there.

But once you get it and you open it, you find three different bandage packages inside. You had no idea which one to use. They were all different sizes. But they were all the same color, a pale yellow, so that was good. Unity was good.

TA: um  
CA: any kind of bandage shoald do the trick

Oh. Ok! Yay, less work for you.

You take out some bandages at random (they happen to be the largest kind) and wrap the girls cuts as tightly as you can. The cut on her cheek you use tape to put on, since you don't know how to wrap a face wound. The other ones on her leg and her arms you tie off like you’ve seen Eridan do for you a million times.

The ugly dark red marks on her skin are still there. Now more of them have blisters. What do you--

CA: be careful around the burns!  
CA: the best thing to do for troll burns is to expose it to as much air as possible  
CA: exposing them to anyfin else isn't good  
CA: especially wwater  
CA: wwater makes it wworse!

A fleeting thought crossed your mind. You remember once, when you were hanging out with Karkat out of social pressure, and he had gotten bored. He had called a guard in, and you remember being both curious and scared about what he was going to do. He then told the guard, “Bring in a seadweller, preferably from the lower dungeons.” He then asked you, “What do you prefer, torch or spear?”

Out of fear, you had said torch.

Needless to say, you left halfway through because you couldn't take how much the seadweller writhing on the floor looked so much like Eridan, nor how Karkat laughed at the burning victim like it was a comedy show.

TA: thats why burns kill seadwellers?  
CA: you got it!

Huh.

So you lightly waft air towards the biggest burn marks with your hand. She still hasn't stirred.

CA: be sure to cushion her head too  
CA: wwe’ll only be able to see if she got concussed once she’s up

Karkat would laugh at you if he saw you were taking orders from a violet lowblood seadweller, but you shivered more at the thought of a corpse in your hive. And if this girl, a definite maroon blood, died here, what would people say? Especially if Karkat found out, then you were done for. Drones would come for you sooner than you could get rid of the body.

And you were terrified of the drones.

So you go and grab some plush snuggleplanes from your storage compartment, left over from your grubhood years where'd you fall everywhere and your lusus had to wrigglerproof everything. As gentle as you can, you place the biggest snuggleplane under her head, the others you put around her. She wouldn't fall, no way, of course that wouldn't happen. But if she shifted, she'd be comfortable.

TA: is that all?  
CA: yep!  
CA: all you can do for noww i believve is stay near her until she wwakes up

That's it?

TA: 1 can do that  
TA: she’ll wake up and be totally fine  
TA: thank you for the tips  
CA: a course, sol!  
CA: anyfin for a good frond

The use of the word “friend” (even if it's a pun) is enough to put a damper on your smile.

CA: an you’re helping somemoby so  
CA: oh hold on  
CA: k i gotta go, vvris is callin me  
CA: take care a you and her, sunfish :)

Sunfish. He calls you Sunfish.

You say your goodbyes and log out. You can't help but stare at his casual goodbye though. Your pusher was relishing in his attention up til that point. 

You shake your head. One day you will have him. He just doesn't know that yet.  
~  
“Who the F--”

“Whoa,” you say, looking the girl right in the eyes. “No language, please.”

It’s been two days since you took this troll into your hive from the collapsing ruins of a cave. She just woke up not even ten minutes ago, and is currently thanking you by throwing all the snuggleplanes at you along with a lighting fixture and a writing stick. 

“Language?” She practically shrieked, nearly catapulting one of her shoes at you, “You want to tell me what to do? You aren't my freaking lusus, you don't get to tell me jack sh--”

“Again,” you smile at her, because she's as funny as she is annoying you already, “Language.”

She burns holes into your think pan as she stares at you. She looked mad enough to be huffing out puffs of smoke at this point. Why, though? You’ve only been helping her. You should be her hero right now.

“I did save your life, you know,” you still smile at her, “And I am not hearing a thank you. Especially since I don't know you.

“Saved my--” the girl shakes her head. “No you didn't, liar.”

“I did,” you say, walking over and sitting besides her on the nutrition slab (maybe you should consider getting a healer’s platform like Eridan, if you're going to keep having crazy injured maroon bloods in your hive). “I wouldn't lie.”

She looks you over and cocks her head. “I can't tell if you're lying now or not.”

“I’m Sollux,” you introduce yourself instead of continuing the conversation. “Who are you?”

“Um, so wait, are you lying or not?”

“That's a weird name.”

“Ugh, no, that's not my name, and now I really don't believe you.”

“This is a continuation of your name? It's super long.”

“No!” She shouted, slamming her fist down on the table, and for what looks like the first time she noticed the bandages that were wound tight around her arm. She stared as if it took that much to process them.

“What are these?” She asked slowly.

“Those? They're bandages I think,” you poke her arm where one of the largest bandages are and she jerks away. “I put them on myself! With help,” you add.

“What--” she says and then hisses. You are startled at first, until you see that she had shifted her leg and felt the sting of the burns. You felt happy to notice that Eridan was right, yet again, since while exposed to the air the burns had a lot less blisters.

“Less blisters,” you mention, “that's good. That's very good.”

“Good?” She lurches close enough so that even at talking volume is loud in your audible clots. “Good? There are weird burns and patches everywhere on me, I am in a random hive with a random stranger, and to top it all off, said stranger has the pan capacity of a nut creature!”

Hey! “Nut creatures are not bad,” you counter, “they are cute and soft and great cuddlers.”

“Are you a wriggler?” The girl sighed, and slumped down with a pained look in her eyes. “Ugh, everything hurts. What the hell happened to me. Tell me right now.”

That's a very good question.

“That's a very good question,” you say.

The girl rolls her eyes at you. If you were more observant, you would have said she was angry with you. “Let's take this a bit slower so your probably sopor-addled pan can process what I am articulating. How did I get here?”

“Oh, I carried you!”

“From where?”

“A cave.”

“A cave?”

“Yeah. I heard a loud boom and I was walking by and I checked it out and saw you under this huge flaming rock pile and I took you out.”

She is looking at you like you another head. You really hope you don't. Then you'd have two heads. Anything with an even number makes you uneasy. And the number two makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.

She is looking at your floor right now. Her nose is scrunched up and her lips are pursed. Her makeup had been smudged before, and you had tried to clean it up, but looking at her now you see that you just made it worse. Oh well. Good thing is that she can't see it, it's on her face, so she can't get mad at you. Positivity!

The girl finally speaks again. “Tavros,” she murmurs, like she just spoke a demon’s name. 

You are very confused right now. “Tavros?”

“He and Nepeta are always telling me to go outside more,” she mused, her voice going up and down in a sense of either wonderment or realization (maybe both? you couldn't tell). “But I didn't think he’d use that on me.”

“What is ‘that’?” You ask her, “and also, I still don't have your name.”

“His weird mind power thingy that I know he abused before but….” She shook her head. Her arms flung out in a gesture at her body, and her face contorted in pain at the pull of her wounds. “He must have mind controlled me to go outside and then bumped me into a cave and then left me to die. Bastard. See this, this is why I don't go outside. Because things like this happen,” she nodded at her burns, “and Tavros knows caves are one of my biggest fears.”

She then turned to face you as if she hadn't realized you were there before. “Don't tell anyone I said that,” she stuttered out.

You do a zipping motion across your lips.

Another minute of her staring at you. And finally she squinted at you, like you were a speck of something she couldn't see. Her face was all squishy and you had the urge to pop her skull, just to see what kind of sound it would make. It was the weirdest compulsion. 

“I’m Aradia,” she said. 

You smile even wider. “Hi Aradia.”

“I don't like you.”

“I don't like you either.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is bad, ha, but I hope its at least ok? It was fun to write, especially the log, so I hope it was just as fun to read. Sollux has always been a tough character to write normally for me, so writing him in the Oppositetsuck verse was a bit challenging. But don't worry, Captor isn't leaving, I have IDEAS~!
> 
> So there's Part 2! I am having fun writing this and already have another part in the works, which I will hopefully post next Friday. If you have a suggestion on who's perspective I should do next, or just a comment, feel free to leave it below!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!


End file.
